Where Economics & Personal Finance Intersect

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a relatively new Independent Agency of the United States government which concentrates on... well... consumer financial protection. Admittedly, their mandate is a bit up in the air right now, but they have made waves and headlines with a number of fines handed out to financial firms.
They also, like … [Read more...]

So, you've heard a lot about the booming real estate markets in many American cities. However, have you ever calculated if you can afford Boston, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. on your current income and with your current debts?
Have no fear - for the first time on the … [Read more...]

When our friend SSS from Save. Spend. Splurge. asked us if we were interested in shining a spotlight on value-for-your-housing-buck in the Bay Area of California, we jumped at the opportunity. Her prompt:
What can you buy for $250,000, $500,000, $750,000, and $1,000,000 in your neck of the woods?
We decided that our search space would be all of … [Read more...]

Remember Beanie Babies? Those adorable little stuffed (with beans!) animals which set off a crazy toy bubble of epic proportions, right before the ensuing Tickle Me Elmo bubble really took off. Yep, the 1990s were bullish for toys every bit as much as they were bullish for technology.
Around a year ago we warned you folks, as a dispassionate … [Read more...]

Dateline, DQYDJ's original research department: We decided to reprise one of our earlier data examination ideas with an even closer dive into inflation expectations than Monday's diversion. We'll go a bit further - since the most popular mortgage types are 30 year fixed mortgages, the actual expected cost of a mortgage isn't the sticker price, but … [Read more...]

In this article, we present a Home Investment Calculator. We estimate median values and actual returns for any of 356 American Metropolitan Statistical Areas in an attempt to tell all of our American readers exactly how well their homes have performed as an investment.
Real Estate Return Calculator
For those of you reading this on feed … [Read more...]

Much has been made on the blogosphere and even on our own website about keeping up with the Joneses, the desire to maintain expenses similar to your neighbors. They bought a new Infiniti, why shouldn't I? A similar, yet different, concept is the idea of lifestyle creep, the slow build-up of "necessary" expenses as your income increases. I myself … [Read more...]

In a recent post, I lamented the inefficiencies I saw in the mortgage process. Red tape, confusing questions, obscured data and dragging one's feet is all-too-common in the loan origination business. My main question I sought to answer today is 'Why?' With a purchase so large and significant, I would hope that the market provided a better answer, … [Read more...]

Last October, I mentioned that I had finally hit a net worth of zero, celebrating the occasion of being officially worthless. At that point I mentioned that my next step was to buy a house. I can now say that I finally did get down and buy a house, closing a few months ago on June 13th. I started looking in November just to see what was out there … [Read more...]

Last October, I mentioned that I had finally hit a net worth of zero, celebrating the occasion of being officially worthless. At that point I mentioned that my next step was to buy a house. I can now say that I finally did get down and buy a house, closing a few months ago on June 13th. I started looking in November just to see what was out there … [Read more...]